In an ongoing tradition, the Triangle .Net Users Group will be hosting a special December main meeting featuring a number of “Lightning Talks” by local presenters and a pot luck dinner. It’s a great way to get a full dose of technical info while enjoying a fun and festive gathering with your peers in the local .Net community.
Please help spread the word! I look forward to seeing you there!
NOTE : Meeting is Wednesday December 14, 2011.
I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, and I’ve been amazed how my posting here have introduced me to many great people, helped others, and resulting in some really interesting opportunities for me. Over the last year and a bit, with the rapid flow of information through twitter and other online resources I’ve slipped out of the habit of frequent blog posts that I’ve previously done and enjoyed.
Starting today I plan to change that.
Now don’t worry, I’m not going to try and make up for lost time with a landslide of new posts today, but I do plan to return to a more consistent routine of posts. If you’re still reading this, thanks for sticking around.
One week from today, on Saturday November 5th a number of North Carolina software developers will be spending the day at camp… Code Camp. If you’ve never attending a Code Camp, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to learn, network, and be both inspired and motivated to expand your skills. A number of speakers from near and far will be presenting on a variety of topics. To top it off, this event is free thanks to the support of a number of generous organizations.
For more information and to register visit http://codecamp.org.
After weeks of waiting, enduring silence and rumors, developers finally got their first public look at Windows 8 at Microsoft’s BUILD conference. People here at the conference were pretty excited about what they saw, and I can imagine many, many more watching remotely were also excited, or even relieved to see the details. Having talked to a number of people about their expectations a lot of people were very concerned to learn about the future of the technologies they have invested in both personally learning and financially building into projects.
For people who were worried, maybe the biggest news for them is that if your application runs under Windows 7 it will continue to run under Windows 8. That being said, we can not expect innovation without change at some point along the way. Windows 8 introduces “Metro style Apps”, a new multi-language, multi-view technology. By multi-language it means that native languages such as C and C++, managed languages like C# and VB.Net, but also JavaScript and have equal access to the Windows (WinRT) APIs to interact with windows. In reference to the views, it allows the use of HTML/CSS with JavaScript and XAML with both C# and C++ applications. The “Metro Style” applications are part of an “immersive”, “touch first”, “no compromise” user experience that spans all aspects of Windows 8.
[slide borrowed from \\Build\ keynote
As you can see in the above diagram, the new “Metro Style” apps run along side the traditional “Desktop Apps”. Again, this means that the app you are working on today will continue to work on Windows 8. In many ways, today marks the begging of a new era in Windows application development. Well that may sound sound a bit outlandish, it’s true. This no application model not only allows a new model for application interactions, it promotes it with a variety of services to let apps communicate with each other and with other devices through the cloud.
Bottom line, Windows 8 is going to be a game changer that creates many exciting opportunities.
Have you been to the MSDN site lately? I ask because I know that personally when I need to lookup something information related to my development efforts I’ll just search for it, often getting a mix of hits, instead of heading right the “the source” for much of this info. Admittedly, in the past some information had been hard to find on site, but if you haven’t checked it our recently, the MSDN website has undergone some changes.
A quick glance at the site shows a much cleaner looking design, with what seems to be much better organized information. For a fun comparison, here’s what the site looked like a few years ago.
Below the main menu, the site is dividing into three “portals” separating content by Platforms, Tasks, and News.
The Platforms page provides some overview information and easy access to dive further into Desktop, Web, Cloud, and Phone development areas.
For other areas, a quick click on the “All Developer Centers and Hubs” link takes you to a nice site map for all of the major areas. As you continue to drill into topic areas, the trend of better organized information continues, pulling together a variety of documents, videos, links to articles, and other great sources of information.
Recently at the D9 conference Microsoft demonstrated then next version of Windows.
“Windows 8 is a reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface. A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse. ”
In the demos, Microsoft showed off a some of the new interface and features. This video shows off some of it.
Microsoft also officialy announced a new conference this September called Build Windows where they will be sharing much more information with developers regarding Windows 8. In fact, most requests for additional details about Win 8 generates a “learn more a Build” response.
Since these announcements there has been a lot of speculation by individuals on what this means for current technologies and future development. While I’ve heard some very interesting interpretations by people, I’ve also heard some things that I feel are completely inaccurate. However not knowing all of the details myself, I’m not in a position to say what is accurate or not, but would encourage everybody be cautious about what they hear and read based on this early information, and of course…. “Learn more from Build”`
A team from Microsoft Patterns & Practices have been working to create guidance for building “Modern Web Applications” in conjunction with an advisory group of individuals from the developer community.
“Project Silk provides guidance for building cross-browser web applications with a focus on client-side interactivity. These applications take advantage of the latest web standards like HTML5, CSS3 and ECMAScript 5 along with modern web technologies such as jQuery, Internet Explorer 9, and ASP.NET MVC3.”
To achieve this, the team is creating a reference application to give them a real world example to build and provide a sample to learn from.
The sample application and related guidance documentation are currently available at http://silk.codeplex.com and are free to download. The latest update was June 3rd, 2010 with Drop 10, and updates will continue to be made as the project continues.
I will be posting more on some specifics of the code and guidance, but wanted to share this initial post.
Check out this WP7 created by Brandon Foy. If it reaches 200k views Microsoft will air it on TV.
A number of Microsoft Developer Evangelists at Microsoft have put together a fun coding challenge in conjunction with Windows Azure. The challenge puts your skill and whit against others online via Windows Azure.
“How do you stack up against the coding competition? Play weekly and find out! ”
By using either a free Windows Azure trial account provided (for 3o days) or your own Azure account, you can develop your own player “bot” for the competition. It’s a fun way to learn about Azure and gain some experience publishing an application while at the same time have some fun with coding logic against the other competitors in a game of rock, paper, scissors.
There are a series of webcasts in conjunction to help get our started!
Let’s see if you can knock me out of first place!
http://www.rockpaperazure.com/
Update: Knocked from first place… now to try and get back!
Recently I ran into a situation where I wanted to host an ASP.NET MVC web application and Silverlight application in Windows Azure. The ASP.NET application provides all of the backend services for the Silverlight application. This was all well and good until I decided to move the Silverlight XAP file from the ClientBin directory of the web application over to Blob Storage so that I could update the XAP file without the need to redeploy the entire site.
That’s when it broke.
When moving a XAP file to a different “site of origin” than the website, there are a number of cross domain issues that are potentially introduced. Tim Heuer has and excellent blog post “Hosting cross-domain Silverlight Applications” in which he details the main concerns and how to address the issues. In my case, it was the “XAP MIME Type” issue causing the problem. When Windows Azure Blob Storage was serving up the XAP file, it was not correctly indicating the “application/x-silverlight-app” MIME type. For security reasons Silverlight checks to see that the content is a valid Silverlight type, in my case not allowing the XAP file to run.
I had tried using a couple of utilities to copy my content into blog storage, which had seemed to work fine for image and video files, but not the XAP file and did not allow me to set the content types manually. [UPDATE: Azure Explorer will allow you to update MIME Types: http://azurestorageexplorer.codeplex.com/ ] To resolve the problem, I needed to upload a file to storage and set it’s mime type to “application/x-silverlight-app”. In the end, this is pretty simple to do so I crafted a little utility to properly deploy my XAP file using the following code.
var account = new CloudStorageAccount(storageKeys, true); var container = account.CreateCloudBlobClient().GetContainerReference("clientbin"); container.CreateIfNotExist(); container.SetPermissions(new BlobContainerPermissions { PublicAccess = BlobContainerPublicAccessType.Blob }); var blob = container.GetBlobReference(System.IO.Path.GetFileName(fileName)); blob.Properties.ContentType = "application/x-silverlight-app"; blob.UploadFile(fileName);
If you’re looking at getting up to speed with some Windows Azure training , here are some webcast dates for you to mark down and register for, including the upcoming Firestarter event!
12/09: MSDN Simulcast Event: Windows Azure Firestarter
11/29: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Introduction to Cloud Computing and Windows Azure
12/06: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Windows Azure and Web Roles
12/13: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Worker Roles
01/03: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Working with Messaging and Queues
01/10: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Using Windows Azure Table
01/17: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Diving into BLOB Storage
01/24: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Diagnostics and Service Management
01/31: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: SQL Azure
02/07: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Connecting with AppFabric
02/14: MSDN
Webcast: Azure Boot Camp: Cloud Computing Scenarios
At the Silverlight Firestarter event today in Redmond (And broadcast live around the world) Scott Guthrie kicked off the show with a very exciting look ahead at some of the planned features for Silverlight 5. There were two strong themes to these new features “Premium Media Experiences” and “Business Application Development”.
The enhancements to media include Hardware Decode and presentation of H.264 using GPU support improving performance for lower power devices as well as “Trick Play” capabilities to play videos at different speeds (Up to 2x) with pitch correction. Improved power awareness will keep the screensaver from appearing while video is playing, but also allows the system to sleep when video is paused. Remote control support will also be added to media.
On the “Application” front, features improving text clarity and layout performance and “Fluid” layout capabilities. OpenType support has been enhanced and tracking/leading have been added. Enhancements have also been added for MVVM support and Databinding enhancements.I swear I could here Josh Smith’s excitement all the way in here in NC when he heard that Markup Extensions were being added as well. I think one of the coolest demos of the day was John Papa setting breakpoints in XAML (Yes, in XAML) and having the debugger stop when bindings were hit, providing the ability to step through the binding process and make solving problems easier. A GPU accelerated API was also shown, providing rich 3d visualization capabilities.
If you’re interested, a complete list of future features is available here as well as be sure to check out Scott’s Blog, Pete’s Blog, and Tim’s Blog for the latest info. (For info on the latest release of the WCF Ria Services Toolkit, check out Jeff’s Blog!) The information shared today was a strong indication of the continued commitment Microsoft has to Silverlight, and the exciting opportunities that exist for developers on the web, on devices, and on the desktop with Silverlight!
Friday, December 10, 2010 9:00 AM
North Carolina State University - Jane S. McKimmon Conference & Training Cntr
1101 Gorman St
Raleigh North Carolina 27606
United States
Join your Microsoft Developer Evangelists for this free, all-day event that will get you up to speed with ASP.NET web development, going from zero to sixty in one day.
Whether you’re just starting out or are already on the web and looking for the latest developments, join us for this full day of technical content as we take you through a progression of sessions, all focused on developing with the Microsoft Web Platform.
By the end of the day, you’ll be familiar with latest advances and have a solid understanding of ASP.NET web development options.
Agenda:
· 8:30 – Registration
· 9:00 – To the Web with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms
o The tried-and-true approach for creating effective and robust websites, ASP.NET 4 Web Forms offers powerful abstractions and rapid application development features. Add in recent advances in ASP.NET 4 and Visual Studio 2010 and you’ll be crafting amazing sites in no time.
· 10:30 – Looking at ASP.NET MVC
o ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) is a relatively new option, offering a variety of potential benefits such as separation of concerns, flexibility, control, and testability. In this session, you’ll learn the essentials, along with the latest advances, so you can get started right away.
· 12:00 –The Web Platform Smorgasbord
o Grab a bite to eat and join us for this relaxed but rapid-fire lunchtime look at a variety of web topics, including tools and tech that you’ll surely find appetizing.
· 12:45 – Introducing WebMatrix
o WebMatrix is a new option that provides a simple but powerful way to create web applications. You can create sites based on existing open-source applications, or dive right in and create from scratch. From code and testing to data and deployment, we’ll introduce WebMatrix and show you how it can make your life easier.
· 1:40 – Evaluating Your Web Options
o You’re up to speed with the latest in ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, and WebMatrix, but you may be wondering how and when to choose between them. The great news is you don’t always have to choose just one. In this session we’ll talk about factors to consider, options for adoption/migration, and ways to combine ASP.NET Web Forms and MVC in the same web application.
· 2:40 – Creating Effective Websites with ASP.NET
o Knowing how to create websites with ASP.NET is important, but making them effective is the key. This final session dives into additional options and techniques that apply to both Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC applications. From scripting with jQuery and AJAX, design with CSS, markup and validation techniques, and tools for testing, you’ll learn how to set your sites (and skills) apart from the rest.
· 4:00 – Wrap-up, Evals, and Giveaways
As announced ad PDC10, a number of new features were scheduled to be released before the end of the year…. Well they’re here! (Well.. actually you can Download the new Azure 1.3 SDK here)
New for version 1.3:
Save a spot on your calendar for the Silverlight Firestarter event on December 2,2010. This LIVE event in Redmond, WA is being broadcast live “Everywhere”. We’re working in arranging a venue in the Raleigh/Durham area to get together an view the event, bringing together some of the local Silverlight community. If you’re interested (or have a venue to host us) drop me a note or watch for details here.
For more info, or to register for the LIVE Streaming event please visit the Silverlight Firestarter site
As the November 8 launch date for the new Windows Phone 7 in the US the advertising campaign is getting ramped up.
In a show of support for Silverlight and it’s future at Microsoft, Bob Muglia, President of the Server and Tools Division at Microsoft provided a blog post on the Team Silverlight blog. In his post Mr. Muglia better explained the context of some of his comments.
Among other key points, he very clearly states:
“Make no mistake; we’ll continue to invest in Silverlight and enable developers to build great apps and experiences with it in the future”
In the post he also outlines some key trends the Silverlight targets:
“Customers are demanding the richest possible client experiences, and developers are increasingly looking to build premium, tailored experiences optimized for specific devices.”
“Customers want to be able to deliver client experiences that are optimized for specific form factors.”
“Media delivery across the Internet continues to accelerate dramatically. Customers want HD, studio quality, premium media content.”
“Lastly, there has been massive growth in the breadth and diversity of devices made by a wide variety of vendors providing both open and closed systems.”
And lastly, relating to the positioning of Silverlight and HTML(5)
“The purpose of Silverlight has never been to replace HTML, but rather to do the things that HTML (and other technologies) can’t, and to do so in a way that’s easy for developers to use. Silverlight enables great client app and media experiences”
These echo some of the comments made by Steve Ballmer about Microsoft wanting to fully support HTML but also using Silverlight to go beyond those capabilities in a variety of client and application solutions.
When PDC 2010 was first announced, it was largely positioned as a cloud computing event. Soon other topics such as Windows Phone 7 and IE 9 were added to the mix, as well as as a framework track. The marketing message at the event was clearly focused on Azure and supporting HTML 5 through IE9. The event included some exciting announcements about new Azure features that are just around the corner, a new release of IE9, and some exciting asynchronous support for languages. There were some other gems, but not quite the volume of big, wide reaching news that we have become accustomed to at PDC.
There were a lot of products and technologies that were not discussed. From the very beginning, the event was very specifically positioned around Azure and cloud. Now because of some of the tech media coverage of certain statements made by Microsoft management, a lot has been read into what was said and what was not shown, especially around Silverlight. I wish many aspects of what was said was handled differently, but if you take a step back I think it’s pretty easy to see the bigger picture.
HTML 5 will no doubt play a major role in the future of browsing the web, and it’s something we need to put on our radar. The reality today however is that HTML 5 is still a spec being defined, it’s level of support is far ranging, and there are many things that HTML simply will not do. As always, need to too choose the best tool for the job at the right time, knowing that eventually there may be new technologies that we use to do some things. Long before this announcement we were all making choices about when to use html for websites and Silverlight for more advanced application scenarios.
Personally, I’m extremely confident in my learning investment in Silverlight and it’s capabilities to provide long lasting solutions, and extremely excited about using it in the future!
Here are some other voices from the community to consider:
http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2010/10/30/my-position-on-the-silverlight-debate.aspx
http://blog.nerdplusart.com/archives/silverlight-and-html5-and-your-future
http://csharperimage.jeremylikness.com/2010/10/so-whats-fuss-about-silverlight.html
http://www.snowball.be/2010/10/31/Silverlight+Will+Stay+Dont+Worry.aspx
http://wildermuth.com/2010/10/30/Post-PDC_HTML5_v_Silverlight_Debate
It’s that time of year again when the local Microsoft Developer community works together to put on a free day of training known as Code Camp. This mini-conference attracts a wide variety of speaker from near and far, offering 30+ topics on a variety of topics. The event is free, and provides a great opportunity to learn network with the local software development community. The event is scheduled this fall for Saturday November 6th.
For complete details and registration please visit http://www.codecamp.org
XNA Games on Windows Phone 7
Description
Chris G. Williams will be presenting 'A Tour of Windows Phone 7 and XNA 4.0'. In this
talk, he'll cover what's new in XNA 4.0, especially as it pertains to Windows Phone
7. He'll cover phone features, using the emulator and how to take advantage of the
various sensors (like the Accelerometer) and features (MultiTouch, Gestures, etc)
in your games. Rumor has it, he may even have a phone with him.
As everybody scrambles to educate clients and site administrators on the recently announced ASP.NET Security Vulnerability, it’s great to see organizations like those behind Umbraco being proactive to protect their install base.
Logging into an Umbraco site, administrators are immediately greeted with a warning about the security issue:
Clicking on the alert provides the administrator simple instructions to install a patch to address the issue.
It’s great to see this level of support! Yet another reason to check out Umbraco if you haven’t already.
PS – Please take the steps necessary to protect any sites you may have.
This weekend information regarding a security vulnerability with ASP.NET was released. If you have a website based on ASP.NET, it’s extremely important that you read this information and take the appropriate steps to secure your website. ScottGu has posted details on his blog.
It’s official. Summer is over. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it’s true.
September brings with it the shocking reality that summer is over. There still may be nice days ahead, but they are not the days of summer. We try to deny it, but somehow things are different, and I’m not talking about just the weather. Everybody just seems a little bit more serious, meetings a little more intense, and deadlines a little sooner.
Fall also brings many things to look forward to, including .Net developer community events such as Code Camps, SQL Saturday, and SharePoint Saturday.
Here are some events to note:
Raleigh SQL Saturday – September 18, 2010 Raleigh NC
Richmond Code Camp – October 9th, 2010 Richmond VA
Silicon Valley Code Camp – October 9,10 2010 Los Altos Hills, CA
SoCal Code Camp – Saturday October 23,24 2010 Los Angeles CA
Raleigh Code Camp – Saturday November 6, 2010 Raleigh NC
Desert Code Camp – Saturday November 12, 2010 Phoenix AZ
(If I missed your event please let me know and I’ll add it)
If you’re in the Raleigh/Durham area and are interesting in developing applications for Windows Phone 7 be sure to check out the upcoming “Firestarter” training event on Wednesday September 8th.
Event Registration link: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032456599&Culture=en-US
Event Overview
Wednesday, September 08, 2010 9:00 AM - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 5:00 PM Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Welcome Time: 8:30 AMNorth Carolina State University - Jane S. McKimmon Conference & Training Center 1101 Gorman St
Raleigh North Carolina 27606
United StatesDream It. Build It.
The power to build smart, visually stunning games and applications is right in your hands with Windows Phone 7. Want to see what’s under the hood? This full-day series of learning events for developers will take you behind the scenes with an inside look at the philosophy, design language, and the fundamentals of Silverlight and XNA coding for Windows Phone 7. You’ll also see how the Windows Marketplace provides exciting new distribution and monetization opportunities for developers and application publishers.
Join your local MSDN Events team and get ready to amplify your creativity, productivity and market opportunities.
Morning Sessions:
Introduction to Windows Phone Development and the WP7 platform
Meet Windows Phone 7! We’re proud to introduce the innovative Windows Phone 7 platform and explain the philosophy behind its all-new user experience design. We’ll also outline the Metro design principles and cover the basics of building applications for Windows Phone 7. Finally, you’ll tour the Windows Phone Marketplace and get an overview on its exciting revenue opportunities for developers and application publishers.
Building Windows Phone 7 Applications with Silverlight
You’ve heard the fundamentals; now it’s time to dig a little deeper. This session will focus on building Windows Phone 7 applications with Microsoft Silverlight. You’ll see first-hand how to use Visual Studio 2010 and Expression Blend to develop and debug projects. You’ll also learn about the built-in templates and the many available controls and styles for WP7. We’ll wrap by covering how to consume services in the cloud.
Building Windows Phone 7 Applications using XNA
Microsoft XNA has been a favorite with game developers for many years. Now game developers will be able to harness the power of the XNA framework to create highly immersive and responsive games for Windows Phone 7.. We’ll charge full-speed into XNA to outline the basic Windows Phone model, explore its core device characteristics, and review the highlights of the XNA phone framework. Finally, we’ll show you some of the cool and impressive games that have been developed specifically for Windows Phone 7.
Lunch (included)
Afternoon Sessions:
Monetizing Your Apps with Marketplace
Windows Phone 7 will launch with a fully loaded Marketplace and the opportunity for developers to sell or distribute their applications. . In this session, you’ll get the details about how to navigate the certification process and publish your application including updates. Learn how to increase discoverability as well as deepen your connection with your customers through the powerful business intelligence capabilities of the marketplace.
Windows Phone 7 Services
Get ready to build more engaging user experiences with Windows Phone 7 and several powerful cloud- and phone-based components. First up is the Microsoft Location Service, which allows you to obtain location information based on GPS, cell and Wi-Fi signals. Next, we’ll cover the Microsoft Push Notification Service, which provides “live” updates for apps running on the device.
Light Up Windows Phone 7!
Device integration is how an application becomes an experience. In this session, you’ll learn how to create the compelling and interactive mobile experiences which users have come to have expect by tying into device hardware such as the keyboard, touch input and accelerometer. You’ll also learn how to incorporate audio and video into your rich media solutions.
If you haven’t already registered, be sure to check out the upcoming Windows Azure Boot Camp that’s taking place Wednesday June 23rd in Durham, NC. This free training event is a great opportunity to get your feet wet with Windows Azure. Microsoft DE Brian Hitney and Jim Duffy from TakeNote Technologies will be presenting the content.
This is a hands on workshop, so show up laptop in hand and ready to learn. More information and registration information is available. Once again, it’s a free event but you must register to attend.